Defense science panel: climate a national security threat

The Defense Department’s highly-regarded science panel is calling for the U.S. military to improve intelligence-gathering related to climate change.

« Climate change has the potential for significant impacts on all three of the basic elements important to national and international security: defense, diplomacy and economics, » says the Defense Science Board report. Particularly in Africa, the report warns of increasing challenges to national security caused by global warming.

The National Academy of Science has concluded that climate change, largely driven by fossil fuel use releasing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, has led to a 1.4 degree increase in average global surface temperatures over the last century, and will likely drive a 2 to 11 degree increase in the next century, depending on the size of future emissions.

Creating an intelligence group to address climate under the Director of National Intelligence

Support civilian satellites to monitor climate change

Decision making that assumes a 5.4 to 7.2-degree rise in global average temperatures by the end of the century

The report concludes in an appendix by assessing various « tipping point » events, such as the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet and the potential for other nations, mentioning China, to attempt unilateral geoengineering schemes for staving off climate effects.